Trapped at anchor due to a legal dispute, the skeleton crew of a cargo ship come into potentially deadly conflict with one another, in this slow-burning psychological thriller from Turkish writer-director Tolga Karaçelik.

Ivy

Tolga Karacelik

Day after day, day after day,We stuck, nor breath nor motion;As idle as a painted shipUpon a painted ocean.

The ghost of Samuel Taylor Coleridge's Rime
of the Ancient Mariner haunts the second
feature by Turkish writer-director Tolga
Karaçelik. Taking a classic scenario — a
small group of people aboard a stranded vessel
— this meticulous psychological thriller
functions simultaneously as a gripping
survival story, an allegory for a crumbling
political system, and a study of people's
minds under extreme pressure.

Ivy is the name of a massive cargo ship
that weighs anchor in Egyptian waters
while en route to its final destination.
However, the crew soon receives troubling
news: the shipping company has gone
bankrupt and the owners have disappeared,
along with any chance for the seamen
to collect the pay owed them. While the
majority of the ship's crew are allowed to
go ashore, the ship's captain and five other
crew members are obliged to stay aboard
to prevent the Ivy from being impounded
by the local authorities.

As supplies run low, nerves fray, and the
ship remains forcibly becalmed by the legal
morass, the rising tension among the men
is primed to take a deadly turn.

With the aid of his strong cast and the
magnificent photography by Gökhan
Tiryaki (renowned for his work on Nuri
Bilge Ceylan's Cannes prizewinners Once
Upon a Time in Anatolia and Winter Sleep),
Karaçelik creates a truly memorable
atmosphere of slow-burning suspense.
Evocatively enigmatic, Ivy will stay with
you long after its haunting finale.